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Jeremy Denk: Think, Play, Love

Friday afternoon, I had the opportunity—along with busloads of elderly folks, school children, and members of eighth blackbird—to see the CSO under Michael Tilson Thomas accompany Jeremy Denk in Beethoven’s 3rd Piano Concerto. If you are unfamiliar with Jeremy Denk, you should read his blog and buy his Ives CD. Not necessarily in that order... Read more »
By Evan Kuchar,
December 10, 2011 at 4:21 pm
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8bb Composition Contest Results

Last night at the MCA, a hundred curious audience members gathered to hear eighth blackbird perform 3 new commissions. The composers commissioned had been selected as part of the first-ever eighth blackbird / Finale / American Composers Forum composition contest. More than 500 composers applied [yours truly respectfully recused himself], 3 were chosen, of which... Read more »
By Evan Kuchar,
December 9, 2011 at 11:43 am
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Chicago Composers Orchestra Amidst Lush Plantlife

Like a hothouse for growing composers, the Chicago Composers Orchestra gives orchestral composers a rare opportunity to have their works performed, all while exposing audiences to new works—in short, filling a void in the Chicago music scene. On Wednesday, the 40-some-odd-person group ventured to the west side to perform 5 world premieres at the Garfield... Read more »
By Evan Kuchar,
December 8, 2011 at 11:59 am
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Composing pt 1: Improvisation

It has been said that improvisation is composition but sped up. And vice versa. Either making decisions realtime or freezing (musical) time to consider the options before choosing one. Maybe this is a fairy tale told to undergrads to get them over their fear of composition (not that their fear of improvisation is that much less)... Read more »
By Evan Kuchar,
December 2, 2011 at 2:03 pm
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rvw: Ariadne at Lyric

Sometimes the play within a play is the play. Or, in the case of Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos, the opera within the opera. Let’s start with the play. Strauss’s 1912 opera was originally conceived as the postlude to a play, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme by Molière. It’s a play in which a middle class guy, the... Read more »
By Evan Kuchar,
November 29, 2011 at 12:21 pm
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Dance: A Brief History of What the Bleep

They say writing about music is like dancing about architecture. Futile. And yet, these days we’ve had music about architecture and now dance about physics. Liz Lerman’s The Matter of Origins takes on the big questions, taking inspiration from the physicists at the bleeding edge of matter, such as the ones working at CERN. These are... Read more »
By Evan Kuchar,
November 12, 2011 at 10:30 am
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Spotify Trick / Contemp List

I found a contemporary classical list on Spotify that is collaborative, meaning that you can add to it (and subtract I suppose). As such it serves as a good repository for all things new and classical. Or at least it should. [If we have a list of everything, then we can use it to cull... Read more »
By Evan Kuchar,
November 10, 2011 at 9:43 am
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Woes of a music snob: Filter II

Hungry and desperate for a restroom, I left Decibel Audio in Chicago’s formerly yipster Wicker Park neighborhood in search of something tangible to eat. No Earwax, Sultan’s seemed too far, so I settled on Filter II. A very believable recreation and approximation of the original, Filter II no longer attracts punks and tattooed art students... Read more »
By Evan Kuchar,
November 9, 2011 at 4:25 pm
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rvw: Glorious Boris at Lyric

While the serfs suffered and the boyars bayed, Boris Fyodorovich Godunov, the Czar of Russia, wallowed in grief. Pushkin dramatized this moment in Russian history into a play, Borris Godunov, which Modest Mussorgsky turned into an opera, currently in production at the Lyric Opera. The dazzling spectacle transports the audience back 400 years to a turbulent... Read more »
By Evan Kuchar,
November 8, 2011 at 3:16 pm
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Quality vs. Style

In my post from yesterday, I tried to compare the experience of an indie rock show, a world-class electronic music show, and a super-indie avant-classical music concert. The audience sizes were a couple hundred, 4,000, and a couple dozen, respectively. The disparity in the qualities of each of the shows was startling, while the ticket... Read more »
By Evan Kuchar,
October 26, 2011 at 11:03 am
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